The ‘What If’ Game: Worries Waiting for MS Test Results

Today, there are nearly 60,000 recent high school graduates in Ireland (they call them “leavers” here) who are heading in to get the results of their “Leaving Cert” exams. This is the set of tests given to set young adults off on their academic and/or career paths.

Big stress around a lot of homes and cottages these past few weeks as everyone awaits their scores.

Much could be gained in those times by heeding the advice being given to teens here these past few days in particular: “No amount of worrying is going to change things now.” Truer words were never spoken to someone awaiting the results of this medical test or that – MS, in particular.

We all likely had MS – even fairly obvious symptoms – for years prior to heading in to a doctor who had finally figured out (or perhaps been forced by our stacks of Internet research about what we’d been going through) that we needed serious attention. Once the clock is started with testing and the clipboard full of possible prognoses, it’s all “Pencils down and turn in your papers.”

Even years after “You have multiple sclerosis,” there can be days of stress bordering on terror as we wait for the next MRI images to be read, for the blood test that determines if we can take our chosen medication, or if we qualify for this clinical trial or the other. We play the “what if” game, we bargain, we grieve the possible outcomes.

“Worrying,” I once heard, “is nothing more than praying for something that you don’t want to happen, to happen.” We all know it won’t do any good, but we can’t seem to stop ourselves. Even, it would seem, when there is no “studying” that we can do for these tests that will make our scores any better than they’re going to be.

As those tens of thousands of Irish kids slip open envelopes or punch in pass codes to see their Leaving Cert results, I wish them all the best in their life going forward. For those of us living with MS, I’ll simply do as I always do, and be…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trevis Gleason

Trevis L. Gleason is a food journalist and published author, an award-winning chef and culinary instructor who has taught at institutions such as Cornell University, New England Culinary Institute and...read more